


The men who sold the world

by orphan_account



Series: Robbe and Sander getting on with it [4]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Desire, Enforced distance, Facing the world, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Fulfilment, Kissing, Longing, Love, M/M, Unrequited Love?, reluctance, together at last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 19:50:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21343780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: vrijdag 8 november 2019, 15:07Robbe likes to think he knows what's right and wrong. And that night with Sander - that was wrong. So he blocks him, cuts off all contact, and tries to go back to his old, normal life. But what if he has got it the wrong way round? What if he is living his whole life wrong, and Sander is the one thing that is right?Written to deal with donderdag 7 november 2019, 07:46
Relationships: Robbe IJzermans/Sander, Robbe Ijzermans/Sander Driesen, Robbe/Sander
Series: Robbe and Sander getting on with it [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537516
Comments: 10
Kudos: 133





	The men who sold the world

It had been the most magical night of his life. But also his biggest mistake. He couldn’t let it happen again.

Sometimes, Robbe thought that maybe everything else had been a mistake. That he should never have got together with Noor, that Sander had made a mistake with Britt too, and that night, when he let his soul fly free and it came to roost in Sander’s arms, it had been the only thing that had been right in his world for a long time.

He was reliving the evening, reliving Sander practically every moment of the day. His touches had been tattooed on his skin and his words played back on loop in his head. He could hardly believe something so perfect had happened to him.

But it had happened. But it can’t have been perfect. Although his heart may have been left there in the pool with Sander, who pulled him close and longingly kissed him like he’s never been kissed before, his life was still going on around him. When they raced downstairs and out of the door of the pool, frantically cycling into the park to pull on their clothes and kiss each other warm, Robbe felt it could be like this forever. He was alive with this live wire of a boy. But the spell had to be broken and Sander checked his phone to find missed calls from Britt. Robbe had cycled with him halfway to her place before they parted with one deep kiss and a searching look and they had to go their separate ways.

That had been a dream, it seemed to Robbe. Just like the first time they had met and had twirled round the supermarket with carefree abandon, joking and laughing and simply being with each other, in the fullest sense of the word, that night they raced through the tunnel and Robbe could have sworn he flew all the way. But just like that time, gravity had pulled them down to the real world with all its other people and suddenly things weren’t so simple.

Robbe didn’t hate Noor. He knew he couldn’t love her with those pangs that sparked in his chest every time he saw Sander. But he was with _her_. And Sander was with Britt, and they had been together for six months. He couldn’t break that up. Noor was funny and the coolest girl he knew and he felt certain obligations to her, if not any actual affection any more. And anyway, what would people say if they knew he had broken up not one but two relationships, came out as gay and started dating the first boy he had truly kissed? It just couldn’t happen.

It was painful, but it had to stay a dream. He had to distance himself from Sander - it couldn’t happen again. Though his body burnt cold with longing and he could barely think of anything else, that night where everything had fallen into place could only ever be a fanfiction of his real life, which was happening now.

So he put himself out of temptation, and though he felt sick to his stomach, blocked him on Whatsapp and unfollowed him on Instagram. He was determined to close the door on Sander, keep him in a safe corner of his heart only to look at on a rainy day. He was sure he’d get over it eventually, though his whole body and heart was crying out for him, addicted to his magnetic gaze, his smooth, strong body, his small, sweet smiles from that delicious mouth. But let’s not think about that.

Hours and days passed with very little to show for them. He had tried reaching out to Noor and on the next night he had cornered her outside work, on time, and told her how sorry he was. She took some persuading and didn’t seem to fully believe it (Robbe wasn’t sure if he was convinced himself) but it felt like the right thing to do and an air of normality descended. He could live with this, he told himself.

Though he was lonely at school, he refused to turn back to him. The Broerrrs were no longer his Broerrrs and as much as he hated how they had made him feel he wanted to just be part of that easy banter again where he didn’t have to think. He couldn’t be himself around them any more though, and now he ate lunch on his own or with Yasmina, though not when Britt was around.

He didn’t know how long he had spent in this daze, going through the motions of his old, pre-Sander life, until something shocked him out of it. It was a cold, murky afternoon what seemed like ages later (though it was only Friday) and he stood muffled up outside school, waiting for Noor who was going to come and meet him and go back to his place. He was looking forward to trying to make it up with her but filled with a leaden dread at the thought she might want to try and consummate their love again, which is what she thought they had. He was trying not to think of it, gritting his teeth and peering through the fog when his eye was involuntarily drawn. But of course, he hadn’t seen Noor - for some reason, Sander was there and his unconscious had picked him out of the grey instinctively. He felt himself swell and grow hot and gazed forward again, hoping he hadn’t seen him. 

But of course he had seen him. They noticed each other like flashes in the dark. Sander came up to him, pushing his bike, with a meek, babylike concern on his face. After a moment or two looking at him while Robbe refused to look his way, he started gently, “Robbe.”

It wasn’t a question, it sounded to Robbe more like an answer. But Robbe panicked. It hadn’t been two days and here he was again. “Sorry,” he told the air in front of him, “I have to go. I’m meeting Noor.”

And before he could think twice, he swivelled round and walked away from the boy of his dreams, quite literally, and also away from the direction from which Noor would approach - but he had to get away.

This time the voice wasn’t so gentle. “Robbe! Where are you going?” He could hear the sound of the bike being pushed behind him.

Robbe kept his eyes on the ground with a concerted focus. “I have to go, sorry. I don’t think Britt has come out yet, she’s still inside.” He flung the words over his shoulder like he was spitting out bad food. The bike noises stopped but they were soon replaced by Sander himself cycling round and stopping on the pavement in front of Robbe. He stopped, rooted, in his tracks but still would not raise his eyes to Sander’s face, though he could feel those blue stars burning into him.

“Robbe, I’m not here for Britt. I have to speak to you.” Robbe couldn’t go here again. He had just started to sort his life out and he didn’t need this. He was fine just as he was.

“Sander,” the name felt so bittersweet to say. “Let me go, I don’t want to see you.” Robbe flicked his eyes for a moment up to that angelic face, knowing this was a mistake as his heart began to spill over into his stomach. He started to push past and leave this behind.

But Sander was having none of it. He slipped off the bike and grabbed him by the arm. Robbe was startled by the touch and its firm grip but knew he had no power to resist. Sander pulled them into the adjacent block, edging inside a shadowy courtyard and off the pavement.

“Robbe, I don’t care whether you want to speak to me or not. You’re going to answer me now, because I can’t seem to get hold of you any other way.” Robbe met Sander’s face which was edged with fury and Robbe’s breathing started to come faster. He looked out over the street, anywhere but into his face. He wanted to give in and melt and say sorry and hold him. But that could only happen now in his dreams. “Why are you not talking to me? What have I done?”

Robbe looked back at Sander, confused. But in his guilt, he still didn’t say anything. “I can’t believe that I mean nothing to you, that… _that_ meant nothing. If you felt half of what I feel…”

Robbe wanted to stop him, silence him with a kiss, smother his anxiety and drown both his longing and Sander’s confusion. But he resisted.

“Am I wrong? What have I done? Why can’t you talk to me?” Sander’s voice sounded choked, with pain, or anger, or desire, Robbe couldn’t tell. Suddenly he was filled with remorse, though, for what he had done. He had not for one moment thought that him blocking Sander out of his life would also have blocked himself out of Sander’s. He could picture him now, wanting to hold on to what they had, needing to hold on to some love and not go into freefall. He must have felt as lost and distraught as Robbe did, only without the benefit of knowing what he had done wrong.

“Sander…” Robbe began. He was never very good at explaining how he felt or articulating the complex things that go on in his chest. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Are you saying that you blocked me for my own good? Can you imagine how it felt, to go from feeling on top of the world to complete rejection and rock bottom within the space of one text? Sorry Robbe, but you _did_ hurt me.” Sander was angry now and spitting his words with hot breaths. “You told me I would find someone who could love me. But - I feel like I am reaching out for you, but you’ve gone away.”

Robbe blinked desperately, trying to hold his resolve, but aching to put it right. His remorse deepend to black regret, as he wished he could undo what he did, though knowing it had to be this way. He managed to raise his voice. “Sander, it’s not like that. I…" How could he begin to try and say what he felt? "Noor… I couldn’t just leave her. I owe her.”

Sander cut him off with a biting, humourless laugh. “I know, I know, you don’t think I feel the same thing about Britt? But Robbe, are we really going to spend our lives trying to measure up to other people? That’s not life. This is life.”

With that he planted a furious, passionate kiss on Robbe’s mouth. He felt his whole body lurch with lust, soaked with fulfilment. For a moment, he gave that kiss everything, his frustration, his longing, his remorse, and desire coursed through his body as body reacted freely and instinctively. But he pulled back, as much as it pained him, with a gasp. 

Choked with remorse, he said quietly, “Sander, I can’t have a life with you. This can’t happen.”

“By whose rules, Robbe? This is us now. We can decide what we do. It will hurt other people, I’m sure. But you can’t live your life for them. Not when you have us. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too.” Sander’s pained gaze searched Robbe’s face.

“Sander, I feel it. Sander, I…” but he was silenced as another kiss landed home. Their tongues and lips knew what they were doing and spoke more love to each other than Robbe could do with his shaky words.

They broke apart, breathing and Robbe leant his forehead on Sander’s. He felt home. But he couldn’t forget this time that outside of this courtyard, somewhere close by in the cold Antwerp streets, Noor was waiting for him, again. Tears sprung to his eyes at the thought of being left alone, without this. He knew in that moment exactly what Sander had articulated to him that morning by the bins, which now felt so long ago.

“Don’t leave me.” The words came out in a whisper, but carried all the emotion of a scream.

Sander drew back, eyes shining, with that playful smile dancing over his lips. “I won’t if you won’t.” He laughed, though it sounded more like he was going to cry.

They stood there, either side of Sander’s bike, each staring at the face they felt they would be looking at for a very long time, accompanying them through the life to come. Robbe gulped the knot out of his throat. “OK.”

Sander’s smile broke into a grin that spread up and crinkled his eyes. “Deal.” He turned and mounted his bike, his movements slow and reluctant. As he looked up to move off, Robbe took a step forward, his phone in hand, and a bashful smile pulled at his mouth. 

“Um, this may be a bit forward, but could I get your number?”

Sander laughed, properly this time, and Robbe felt his heart explode. “How do I know you won’t go losing it again?”

Before Robbe could reply, however, Sander leaned forward and planted one final, hot kiss on Robbe then began pedalling away from him, back onto the pavement and out into the street. He checked his phone. There were texts from Noor, angry as usual, but he skipped past and opened his Whataspp contacts. Unblocking Sander, he felt so positive for the first time in a very long time, and at ease. He did not have to be ashamed of this. Like Sander said, they would hurt other people, but Robbe couldn’t help thinking how insignificant everyone else was right now compared to this dream come true. Because that was what he was.

He opened their chat. The last message was still hanging in the air, from last time. He quickly typed a text before himself leaving the courtyard to walk back to the school, feeling equipped by Sander’s love to face the music, Antwerp seeming vibrant and joyous around him. 

  
_Slept well, thanks. _

_Dreamt of you._ 😘


End file.
